Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Matthew 10:16-42, Wolves, floggings, a sword and a cup of water
Jesus warns the Twelve of councils, floggings in synagogues and trials before governors and kings, of family turned against family, and promises that whoever receives them receives him.
Matthew 10:16-42, in every translation this tool compares.
Jesus warns the Twelve that their mission will bring arrests, beatings in synagogues and trials before rulers, and that families will split over him. They need not fear people who can only end a life; the one to fear is the one who decides a person's final fate. Loyalty to Jesus must outrank loyalty to parents and children and be ready for a cross. Yet even the smallest kindness shown to his messengers will be rewarded.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/synagogue\/","n":"The synagogue","s":"The local gathering place where Jews met on the Sabbath to pray and study Scripture. It was also a community center, run by people of standing.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/gehenna\/","n":"Gehenna","s":"The valley of Hinnom outside Jerusalem, a place with a dark history, whose name had become the word for the fiery place of the wicked after death.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/family-first\/","n":"The family's name","s":"Families lived, worked and stood together. Walking out of the family business or putting kin second was a public offense.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/crucifixion\/","n":"Crucifixion","s":"Rome's public, shaming death for rebels, after flogging, with the charge posted for passers-by to read.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/hospitality\/","n":"Hospitality to travelers","s":"Taking in travelers was one of the great virtues of the ancient Mediterranean, above all among Jews. Messengers could travel light because they expected to be housed.","r":""}
Local courts were run by elders or priests, and synagogues, as places of public assembly, were the natural site for discipline; second-century rules prescribed thirteen strokes on the chest and twenty-six on the back (Keener). Flat roofs made good places to shout news. Sparrows were probably the cheapest meat in the market. Micah 7:6, family turned against family, was read as a sign of the end, and Wright reads 10:34-37 with 8:22 as Jesus forming an alternative family. Wilkins gives the later Mishnah procedure: three judges, the offender's hands tied to a pillar, the synagogue attendant striking from a stone with a calf-leather strap of four thongs while Deuteronomy 28:58-59 was read aloud.
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Matthew 10:17, 10:18, 10:26-27, 10:28, 10:29-31, 10:35-36, 10:38 and 10:40-42
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Matthew 10:17, 10:27, 10:29, 10:35, 10:38, 10:40 and 10:42
- N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, ch. 9, Symbol and Controversy, section (iv) Nation and Family
- Michael J. Wilkins, Matthew, in Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary, ed. Clinton E. Arnold, sidebar Flogging in the Synagogue
